martedì 17 marzo 2015

Joujouka ( Jajouka, Joujouka or sometimes Zahjoukah, In Neo-Tifinagh: ⵣⴰⵀⵊⵓⴽⴰ) is a small insignificant village of 500 people on the edge
of the Rif Mountains in northern Morocco: its whitewashed houses have
blue painted doors and window frames. A stony path lined with
luxuriantly overgrown cactuses and sheer rock leads over a hill to the
village mosque and the school. But this isn't an ordinary village. Joujouka is the home of a musical
elite whose ancestors came from Persia in the ninth and tenth centuries
and who are still renowned for the magic and healing effects of the
sounds they make.

The Legend of Sidi Ahmed Sheikh

There are many myths and legends which surround the inhabitants of
the village. Many of them are about Sidi Ahmed Sheikh, a saint who
founded the village in the thirteenth century and brought Islam to
Joujouka. Not only that: Sidi Ahmed Sheikh was a great philosopher and a
talented poet. It was he who discovered the music, both for his poetry
and for his village.In the seventeenth century the ritual musicians of Joujouka served in
the court of the sultans of the Alawi dynasty. They lived in the
palaces of the Muslim rulers, played on festive occasions and performed
regularly on Fridays before the sultans went to the mosque to pray.The art of these Master Musicians is linked both to Sufi mysticism
and to paganism. They play on Tebel and Tariyya (drums), Ghaita
(woodwind instrument), Lira (flute) and Gimbri (stringed instrument).
Over a ritual sequence of several hours, the music develops a hypnotic
attraction which puts musicians and public alike into a trance-like
state. Villagers and outsiders both claim that the music has magical and
healing properties.The healing effect of the music became known in the surrounding
villages: the crippled, the mentally ill, the sterile—they all made the
pilgrimage to Joujouka. They hoped that the mystical sounds and the
"Baraka" of Sidi Ahmed Sheikh would bring them a rapid recovery.

Boujeloud—the Father of Fear

But it's not just the spiritual and healing sounds which are typical
of Joujouka's music. The Master Musicians are also deeply involved in
heathen, rural customs and dance spectacles. A key figure here is the goat-god Boujeloud—also known as the Father
of Fear. Boujeloud is in fact none other than the antique goat-god Pan,
who acts as a kind of source of fertility for the villagers. Women are
said to become pregnant when Boujeloud touches them with his stick as he
dances.Once a year, at the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, a
celebratory fire is lit on the village square in honour of Boujeloud.
The Master Musicians of Joujouka begin to play and everyone waits
excitedly for the arrival of the goat-god. And suddenly he's there: a terrifying creature covered in fresh
goatskin, wearing a straw hat and with his face painted black. Boujeloud
carries two olivewood sticks in his hands, swings them through the air
as he begins to sway in time to the music.

Encounter with the Beat Generation

The music of the Master Musicians of Joujouka has influenced many
western musicians, especially Americans, in past decades. The list of
those who have come to Joujouka in search of musical and spiritual
inspiration is a who's who of students of pop culture, writers and
wanderers between the worlds: from the Tangier-based Beat poets Brion
Gysin, William S. Burroughs and Paul Bowles, to the Rolling Stones
guitarist Brian Jones and the free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman.In the forties it was the then mentor of the Master Musicians, the
famous Moroccan painter Mohammed Hamri, who was the key figure in
bringing the west and Joujouka together. He was the only Moroccan artist
who could deal with Burroughs and Gysin as an equal.From his childhood onwards, Hamri had spent much time in the village
in which his mother was born. The magic of the music seized the boy, who
worked for the whole of his life to support the musicians and the
villagers of Joujouka.During the famines which raged in Joujouka and the surrounding
villages in the Rif mountains during the forties, it was Hamri's
suggestion to make the fascinating music of the region available to a
wider public, to play in public places in larger towns and to earn money
to put an end to the poverty in the village.

1001 Nights in Tangier

Shortly afterwards Hamri met Paul Bowles and Brion Gysin in Tangier.
They recognised and promoted his extraordinary talent as a painter. In
1950, he took them both for the first time to Joujouka where they
experienced the Master Musicians. Brion Gysin was overwhelmed by them;
he said it was the music he wanted to hear for the rest of his life. As
Hamri had done earlier, Gysin took on the role of mentor to the
musicians.Now he too did whatever he could to promote the musicians and to help
fight the effects of famine in the village. As part of his efforts, in
1952 he and Hamri opened a restaurant in the Tangier Kasbah called 1001
Nights.The music journalist Joe Ambrose reports that Hamri was responsible
for the kitchen and the gastronomy while Gysin was responsible for
attracting high-class custom: Bohemians, embassy staff, diplomats—he
made sure the ambience was right. Small groups of musicians from
Joujouka rotated six at a time. They came for a week, went back with
their money and sent the next group. The women of Joujouka worked in the
kitchen and did the cleaning.As well as prominent local figures and members of the demi-monde, the
guests of 1001 Nights included members of the western sub-culture like
Timothy Leary or the Beat writer William Burroughs, who so admired the
Master Musicians that he once described them as a 4,000-year-old rock
band.

Musical experiments with western musicians

The visit of Brian Jones to the Master Musicians in the sixties marks
the start of a series of pilgrimages by western musicians to Joujouka
which is still continuing. The Master Musicians put on a special musical
spectacle for Jones in 1968 and the recordings became the album "Brian
Jones meets the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka," which was one of the first
world music albums.The free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman followed in January 1973. He
was attracted to Morocco by the reports of the music journalist Robert
Palmer, who'd already visited Joujouka. While Brian Jones just recorded
the music of the Master Musicians, Coleman wanted to join them in
performance. But the combination of the two musical worlds turned out to
be more difficult than expected.The ritually fixed musical structures of the Master Musicians
couldn't easily be mixed with Coleman's individualistic improvisation.
But eventually, it's said, Coleman developed a music which was fair to
both sides. The music remained unpublished—shortly before his Joujouka
album was ready, Coleman was fired by his record company.But his experience in Joujouka had a long-term influence on Ornette
Coleman's music. Based on what he'd heard there he developed the sound
of his guitar ensemble Prime Time, which remained typical for him for
many years. And the trip to Morocco also left a deep spiritual
impression on Coleman.The transcendental powers of the ritual music were proof for him of
the existence of magic. Previously he had only believed magic was
possible, now he knew. And after his visit to Joujouka, Ornette Coleman
found himself finally able to free himself from the restrictions of
western musical culture.

Commerce and musical change

Meanwhile, over the last twenty years, the situation of the Master
Musicians of Joujouka has changed dramatically. Economic pressures have
made a life dedicated to music no longer feasible. Traditional ways of
life are eroding in Joujouka as elsewhere. Many musicians leave the
village, looking for a more modern world and for better ways of making
money.But it's not just social change which has had an influence: the death
in 1982 of the former leader of the Musicians, Hadj Abdessalam Attar,
was a decisive influence on the change in their traditional performance
culture. On his death, his son, Bachir Attar, claimed the leadership of
the group.According to the music journalist Joe Ambrose, Bachir Attar went to
the Master Musicians in the village and said that, as his father had
been their leader, this was now his privilege. They should start to
introduce electronic instruments into the music, to make it more
commercial."He was very young at the time," says Ambrose. "I think he was in his
early twenties. The other musicians, many of whom had played on the
Brian Jones album and had been with the group since then, simply laughed
at him and said: 'You can perhaps become leader when the time is right,
but you're not that far yet. You don't get the leadership just because
your father was leader. And anyway this stuff with the modern
instruments is simply rubbish.'"

Questionable world music projects

Nevertheless Bachir Attar retained his ambition to link his name with
that of the music of Joujouka and to bring it out into the world. He
cooperated with top ranking western pop stars, but he made such big
concessions that little was left of the original form of the music of
the Master Musicians.And, unlike Hamri, Bachir Attar never did anything for the good of
the village and its inhabitants with the considerable income he gained
from the commercial marketing of the Joujouka brand. He began to recruit
people who had nothing to do with Joujouka – commercial musicians from
the nearby town of Ksar El-Kebir or Tangier."The Music of Joujouka featuring Bachir Attar", recorded a few years
ago together with the Indian DJ Talvin Singh is Attar's latest album. It
lacks any trace of the fascinating musical content of the traditional
Master Musicians.Attar has also cooperated with the funk saxophonist Maceo Parker and
with the Rolling Stones in world music crossover projects which have
little to do with the musical culture of Joujouka. But not all the musicians of Joujouka are happy with the way in which
Bachir Attar has been exploiting the religious and ritual music of
their village for commercial purposes. Many of them do not want to
follow the self-appointed leader of the Master Musicians on his way
through the international music business.Attar's opponents make up a group which still feels itself bound up
with the spirit with which Hamri made the Master Musicians famous. They
play the music in a way which certainly sounds different from the sound
of twenty years ago, but which doesn't compromise with the stars of the
music scene or with commercial producers. Today there are two factions, both performing as the Master
Musicians, but neither wanting to have anything to do with the other.
The continuous tension between the two camps is not good for the life of
the village, especially since the division often runs between brothers
and cousins.The split of the Master Musicians of Joujouka is a tragic
development. It's an example of what can happen when music from a
developing country gets pulled into the influence of the music industry.
All the same, Joujouka still maintains a highly organised musical
culture, which remains unique in many ways. It's a music which has
repeatedly attracted artistic visionaries and wanderers between the
cultures, looking to find experiment and liberation within its ancient
magical powers.

As narrated in this nice article of Arian Fariborz ,after the death of Jnuin "El Hadj" Abdesalam el Attar, the contrasts within the community grew bitter. The schism occurred gave rise to two different groups. The relations between them were not always idyllic, as you can understand, for example, by what is written about Mohammed Hamri on the site of Bachir Attar.

For a better understanding, the group led by Bachir Attar is The Master Musicians of Jajouka , while the group directly (originally) by Mohammed Hamri along with other elements of Attar 's family is The Master Musicians of Joujouka.

I decided to bring their biographies as well as have been posted on their websites.

The Master Musicians of Jajouka رائد موسيقي جــاجـوكــا

Jajouka is an ancient village perched above a long valley in the blue Djebala foothills of the Rif Mountains in northern Morocco. The village is home to the Master Musicians of Jajouka as well as the sanctuary of Saint Sidi Ahmed Sheikh, who came from the East around 800 AD to spread Islam to North Morocco. As founding members of the village of Jajouka, the Attar family maintains one of the oldest and most unique surviving musical traditions known on the planet. The music and secrets of Jajouka have been passed down through generations from father to son, by some accounts for as long as 1,300 years.

Brion Gysin, William S. Burroughs, Steven Davis and other writers have connected elements of Jajouka’s musical traditions to Ancient Greek and Phoenician ceremonies. Burroughs famously dubbed the Master Musicians of Jajouka “A 4000 year old rock band.” However, he was likely connecting the unique rites of Boujeloudia, performed in Jajouka during the Aïd el–Kebir, to Lupercalia, the ancient Roman celebration, rather than precisely dating the origins of the music itself. Bachir Attar, leader of the Master Musicians of Jajouka, whose father, El Hadj Abdesalam el Attar led the group until his death in 1981, says the family’s most sacred compositions originated more than 1000 years ago.

Although no one can say for certain exactly when the village was founded, all agree that Jajouka derives its baraka, or spiritual power, from the learned Saint Sidi Ahmed Sheikh, whose tomb is both the spiritual and geographic center of Jajouka. Most people who live in Jajouka are members of the Ahl Sherif tribe, which means “the saintly”. The musicians of Jajouka are taught from early childhood a complex music that is unique to Jajouka. After many years of dedicated training, the musicians may finally become Malimin or Masters. In the past, the Jajouka musicians numbered as many as fifty or more players at a time. However, not all musicians reach the level of Malim. Usually only a few great masters arise each generation to pass along the secrets to their sons and nephews.

Before the arrival of Sidi Ahmed Sheikh, legend assigns the origins of the music to a cave in the hills of Jajouka. When the first Attar arrived in the region, he fell asleep in the cave of Boujeloud where the “father of skins” appeared to him in a dream playing the most beautiful music he had ever heard. Boujeloud, for whom Boujeloudia is played, returned to teach the villagers a special form of music they could pass down through the generations. Although villagers tend not to assign a specific date to the historic meeting of Boujeloud and Attar, most attribute the birth of the music to this legendary encounter, while ascribing its healing power to Sidi Ahmed Sheikh’s baraka. Boujeloud is believed by some to be a survival of Pan or of an ancient Phoenician deity, but as devout muslims, the musicians adamantly reject the connection of Boujeloud to any pagan deities.

Some writers in the past have coupled the arrivals of the Attars in Jajouka with that of Farid ad-Din Attar, the Persian poet who may have traveled across North Africa and may have spent time in Morocco. However, little evidence exists to support this connection, as the timing of Farid ad-Din Attar’s possible visit would have been roughly 500 years later than the arrival of Sidi Ahmed Sheikh. Bachir Attar suggests, however, that the first mention of Jajouka in historical writings comes in the Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun, published in 1377. In this early Muslim view of universal history, Khaldun places a young Prince of Morocco in Jajouka where he built a fortified castle. That may have been the time when the Jajouka musicians became the Imperial Pipers of the Sultan, a right they held until the beginning of the European Protectorate Period in 1912. For centuries, a rotating troupe of Jajouka Masters would stay in the palace playing sacred music like Hamza oua Hamzine (55) for the Sultan and his visitors and in battle for the Moroccan army. It was also this time when some jealousy of the royal musicians began to surface amongst others outside the family in Jajouka and throughout the surrounding villages.

For centuries, the Attar family sustained themselves and preserved their traditions with the patronage of the Sultans and donations received from pilgrims who came to the village seeking the healing power and blessings of Sidi Ahmed Sheikh. For many years the Rtobi clan, another early family in Jajouka, maintained the sanctuary of the saint. The responsibilities eventually fell upon the musicians, a duty they still carry out to this day. Local farmers also donated an annual percentage of their crops to the musicians, allowing the latter to dedicate all their time to practicing the complex music of Jajouka and taking care of the sanctuary.

In 1912 when Jajouka was cut off from the Moroccan Sultan, the Imperial Pipers returned to the village with a dahir, or special decree, which was said to have been stamped by seven Sultans of Morocco and indicated how the Jajouka musicians are the original Royal Pipers and should always be respected and protected. It was this time that many outsiders moved to the village and tried to force the Attars off their lands. These people resented the loyalty the Attars’ maintained toward the Moroccan court and they eventually forced them to give up their dahir. They also took lands from the Mosque in Jajouka, which the Attar family built, as well as holy lands of the Saint. Some writers and historians have also suggested that the influx of radio in the 1930s, the fact that sanctuary of Sidi Ahmed Sheikh may not have generated as much income as some other saints in the region, and the sad reality that many Master Musicians were forced into the Spanish army also contributed to the struggle the Jajouka musicians faced to preserve their traditions in the 20th century.

In 1950, near the end of the French and Spanish occupation of Morocco, two of the great influences on the Beat Generation, Brion Gysin, the painter and inventor, and Paul Bowles, the writer and composer, heard the wild music of Jajouka at a moussem (or festival) near Sidi Kacem, Morocco. Gysin was spellbound and determined to hear this Sufi trance-like music for the rest of his life. A year later, by coincidence, Gysin’s lover, Mohamed Hamri, brought Gysin to Jajouka, his mother’s village. After meeting the musicians in their village, Brion Gysin opened the now-legendary 1001 Nights restaurant to showcase their talents to expatriate Tangier in 1954, when the city was still an International Zone rather than a part of Morocco. The fifties were the heyday of the international city, which attracted not only the jet set, but also beat writers. Paul Bowles first formally introduced Brion Gysin to William Burroughs in 1957, and Burroughs also visited the tiny village. In 1968, Brion Gysin brought Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones, to Jajouka. Tragically, Brian Jones drowned in 1969, a month after returning from Morocco, and the album he recorded there, Brian Jones Presents The Pipes of Pan at Joujouka*, was not released until 1971 (*misspelling the name “Jajouka” for “Joujouka”; the only release by Master Musicians from Jajouka to use this spelling). The Rolling Stones reissued this album in 1995 with the correct spelling of the village – Jajouka. The original LP was very influential and led to scores of people visiting the village in the following years, including rock critic Robert Palmer, who wrote about the band and the album for Rolling Stone magazine. Palmer, in turn, invited the jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman. Together with the Master Musicians, they recorded the track “Midnight Sunrise” in Jajouka, which eventually appeared on Coleman’s 1976 album Dancing In Your Head. In the early 1970s, Joel Rubiner, Stephen Davis, and David Silver spent several weeks in Jajouka on assignment for National Geographic. A collection of Rubiner’s recordings were eventually made into the group’s second LP, The Master Musicians of Jajouka, released in 1974 through Adelphi Records.

Despite their exposure to Western audiences and collaborations with Western artists, the musicians continued to struggle for subsistence, as income from their records was minimal. However, the musical traditions of Jajouka endured through this period of change and uncertainty due largely to the steadfastness of leader who also led the band on trips to perform at moussems, weddings, circumcisions and other local gatherings. In 1980, “El Hadj” led the group outside of Morocco for the first time on a tour of Europe.

Shortly after the tour, El Hadj Abdesalam el Attar passed away, leaving the legacy of the music with his six sons, Mohamed, Amin, Abdellah, Bachir, Mustapha, and Ahmed el Attar. All but Ahmed became Master Musicians while Ahmed, who was never a student of the music but managed the group for a short time; helped Rikki Stein organize the 1980 tour of Europe. Bachir was staying in Paris with Brion Gysin and Tony and Natalie Kent looking for work for the band when his father died. Although he’s not the eldest son, “El Hadj” told the brothers that “Bachir is the one to take care of the music” and take over as leader. Though still a teenager at the time, Bachir’s father knew his young son could remember with skilled precision every note and nuance of his family’s music and had the passion in his heart to preserve it. Bachir went on to lead the band on two more successful European tours in the mid 1980s.

Still, the 1980s were a turbulent time for the band as a few elder musicians initially resisted the leadership of young Bachir and were influenced, by local hostile forces, to form a splinter group. However, the tide began to turn in 1988 when Bachir met American photographer Cherie Nutting at the apartment of Paul Bowles. They fell in love, got married and Bachir began to divide his time between New York and Jajouka from 1988 until 1996, a prosperous period for the group during which Cherie managed the band and facilitated several tours and records. In the late 1980s, Bachir met Elliot Sharp through Rodrigo Rey Rosa and together Elliot and Bachir made Bachir Attar in New York, released by Enemy Records in 1988. The pair played at The Knitting Factory in New York and toured throughout Europe with Elliot’s ensemble “Carbon.”

In 1989 in Tangier, Bachir Attar and the Master Musicians of Jajouka recorded with Mick Jagger, Ron Wood and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones on the song “Continental Drift” for the Stone’s album Steel Wheels. Cherie Nutting secured the Palais Ben Abbou in Tangier’s Kasbah, where the 1989 recording event was held, an event well documented by BBC Television and also featured in Pal Bowles’ Days: A Tangier Journal. Mick Jagger has described the Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar as “one of the most musically inspiring groups still left on the planet.” Following the collaboration with the Stones, producer Bill Laswell came to the village with engineer Oz Fritz and recorded the critically acclaimed Apocalypse Across the Sky, released under Axiom Records in 1992. A few months later, Bachir traveled back to New York to record his first solo record, The Next Dream, also produced by Bill Laswell.

Soon after the recording of Apocalypse Across the Sky, all the old members, such as the Master drummer Berdouz, whom had broken away from the band, humbly asked to return to the group under the leadership of Bachir Attar. At this point, the “Master Musicians of Jajouka” were reunited and followed up their recent recording efforts with successful tours throughout the 1990s. Highlights include performances with Ornette Coleman in the early 1990s, appearances by Bachir and Mustapha Attar at Woodstock 1994, full-scale tours of Europe and The United States through WOMAD and Eric Sanzen at the International Music Network, and a seminal performance at New York’s “Summer Stage” in 1996. While on tour in England, the band recorded their fourth full length LP, Jajouka Between the Mountains, during a live session at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios. This record featured the united group and was released by Real World Records in 1995 shortly after the re-release of Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Jajouka.

Although the Master Musicians of Jajouka experienced a period of growth throughout the 1990s, it was also an age of uncertainty as outsiders teamed with jealousy driven people in and around the village in attempt to rewrite the history of Jajouka, cause confusion and take advantage of the internal spit that occurred between a few elders and the rest of the group years back. In 1992, after the band was reunited and all internal conflicts were settled within the brotherhood, a Dublin, Ireland event was organized that falsely advertised Bachir Attar and The Master Musicians of Jajouka as performers. A Cherie Nutting photo of the group was used without permission and a reference to Jajouka’s recent collaboration with Bill Laswell was included in the advertisement for the show. However, Bachir Attar and the Master Musicians of Jajouka were never invited, contacted, nor did they appear at the event. Instead, an imposter group from the region was passed off as the real thing. Additionally, when two peripheral drummers were unanimously let go from the group a few years later, covetous outsiders and a few from the region sought to use the incident to confuse people into thinking the band was split. In fact, they have remained united since the return of Berdouz Sr. and the few others in 1991. Though the band continued to perform in Europe and North America throughout the 1990s, the separation of Bachir Attar and manager Cherie Nutting in 1996 led into a period of doubt in the mid to late nineties.

Due to the tenacity and dedication of Bachir Attar leading the united group, contributions of new management by David Meinert, and booking efforts by Eric Sanzen, the group continued to record and tour throughout the world leading into the new millennium. In 2000, Bachir Attar and the Master Musicians of Jajouka released a fusion record, simply entitled Bachir Attar and The Master Musicians of Jajouka, produced by Talvin Singh and released through Universal Classics. Soon after, Bachir Attar and the Master Musicians of Jajouka collaborated with Howard Shore and The London Philharmonic for the soundtrack of the 2001 film The Cell. The effort opened up the group to a whole new generation of eager listeners and helped create momentum which led to many memorable performances which included several more shows with Ornette Coleman, Bachir and his brother Mustapha touring the US with the eclectic Critters Buggin’ ensemble in 2001, and the Master Musicians first visit to Asia, where they performed in Hong Kong in 2003.

In 2004, Cherie Nutting resumed a close relationship with Bachir Attar as well as her position as manager. Augusta Palmer, daughter of the late Robert Palmer, came to Jajouka in 2005 with a small film crew and shot a documentary, The Hand of Fatima, which explores her father’s friendship with Bachir Attar and the Master Musicians of Jajouka. Additionally, French filmmakers Mark and Eric Hurtado came to Jajouka in late 2006 to shoot a narrative film called Boujeloud, which features the Master Musicians and tells the story of the mystical origins of their music. Throughout the 2000s, the group has continued to perform regularly in Spain and Portugal. In the Spring of 2007, Bachir Attar and The Master Musicians of Jajouka had the honor of performing as the headlining act of a week long tribute to the late Paul Bowles held at the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon, Portugal. Highlights from this live recording turned into the group’s latest LP, Jajouka Live Vol. 1, the first release on their own label, Jajouka Records, founded in 2008 by Bachir Attar, Cherie Nutting and a new friend Michael Gassert aka “MikeSound,” a young engineer/producer who was first brought to Jajouka as part of Augusta Palmer’s film crew for The Hand of Fatima.

Brian Jones Plays With The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka

Rolling Stones Records ‎– COC 49100 1971

Recorded by Brian Jones in 1968 in Jajouka after being brought to the village by Brion Gysin and Mohammed Hamri. Thisvinylhas many years. It Has agedwell, but, inevitably, playback is not perfect. The rustleofvinyland variouscrunches, in my opinion, givean added charmto listening

The Master Musicians of Jajouka رائد موسيقي جــاجـوكــا - Recorded Live in France 1980

THE MASTER MUSICIANS OF JOUJOUKA (Staaltape documentary series)Original bootleg recording which documents the French concerts of the 80s. Originally published by the record Staalplaat in 1989 in a wooden box containing two tapes in a limited edition of 500 copies.

01 55 (Hamsa Oua Hamsine) 02 War Song / Standing + One Half (Kaim Oua Nos) 03 Take Me With You My Darling, Take Me With You (Dinimaak A Habibi Dinimaak) 04 Your Eyes Are Like A Cup Of Tea (Al Yunic Sharbouni Ate) 05 I Am Calling Out (L'Afta) 06 Your Eyes Are Like A Cup Of Tea (Reprise With Flute)HERE

01 Up To The Sky, Down To The Earth 02 The Truth Forever 03 Searching For Passion 04 Taksim 05 You Can Find The Feeling 06 The Blessing For The World From God Only 07 Jamming In London 08 The House Of Baraka 09 Above The Moon 10 The Magic Of Peace

The Master Musicians of Joujouka رائد موسيقي

The remarkable music played by the Master Musicians of Joujouka, a remote village in the Ahl Srif tribal area south of the Rif in Northern Morocco, is thousands of years old.

In the 15th century, when the Sufi saint Sidi Ahmed Schiech arrived in the village, he wrote music for the Masters’ ancestors which could heal disturbed minds. Today’s Masters are blessed with the Baraka or spirit of their saint and use touch and prayer to heal. Bou Jeloud

The Masters’ performances feature a dancer dressed as Bou Jeloud, a Pan-like figure half goat half man. Although the character of Bou Jeloud is found all over Morocco, it takes on different form in Joujouka.

In Joujouka, Bou Jeloud gave an Attar ancestor the gift of flute music and bestowed fertility on the village every spring when he danced. The music relating to this is the Masters at their most mind-blowingly powerful. The Masters, Beats and Hippies

In 1951, the American writer Paul Bowles and the Canadian painter Brion Gysin travelled to a Sufi music festival in Sidi Kacem, a couple of hours from where they were living in Tangier.

When he heard the Masters, Gysin said he wanted to listen to their music every day of his life. In Tangier, he met Mohamed Hamri, a would-be painter from Joujouka. When Hamri took Gysin to Joujouka, Gysin discovered to his astonishment that the music he’d fallen in love with was played by Hamri’s uncles.

Gysin and Hamri opened a restaurant in Tangier called The 1001 Nights and members of the Masters became the house band. It was here that legendary Beat figure William Burroughs first heard the music.

In the late 1950s Gysin and Burroughs lived in the Beat Hotel at 9 rue Git le Couer, Paris. Here Gysin invented the Cut-Up Method of writing and theDreamachine with Ian Somerville and worked with Burroughs, Somerville and filmmaker Antony Balch in Cut Up film experiments to a soundtrack of the Masters Musicians made by Gysin.

When the Rolling Stones were in Tangier in 1967, Hamri and Gysin met them and Hamri formed a bond with Brian Jones. Brian went to Joujouka, where he, too, fell in love with the Masters’ music, although he said ‘I don’t know if I possess the stamina to endure the incredible, constant strain of the festival’. He returned in 1968 to record the Masters.

Before he died in 1969, Brian had prepared the cover, and edited and produced the album of recordings he made of the Masters. Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka was released in 1971, honouring Brian’s memory and exposing a wider audience to the remarkable music of the Masters for the first time.

In January 1973, jazz musician Ornette Coleman recorded with the Masters. A small part of what was recorded was released on the 1975 album Dancing In My Head album. Also in 1975, Hamri’s book Tales of Joujouka was published.

Thanks to Rikki Stein, the Masters played at Worthy Farm, the site of Glastonbury, for the first time in 1980 as part of a three-month tour which included a week’s residency at London’s Commonwealth Institute.

To 2008

After many years painting in LA, Hamri returned to Joujouka and found discord in the village. He built a new house there which became a gathering place for many of the old Masters and their apprentices. He took a large group to Italy in 1991 and in 1992 both he and the Masters took part in the Here to Go Show in Dublin, documented in the DVDDestroy all rational Thought.

In Dublin, the Masters met Frank Rynne, their current manager. Frank spent two months with Hamri in Joujouka in 1994 recording the classic CD Joujouka Black Eyes for Sub Rosa. Since then, he’s recorded Sufi: Moroccan Trance and Boujeloud. In 1998 Hamri and Masters’ drummer El Khalil Radi took part in the Festimad Poetica festival in Madrid with Lydia Lunch, Richard Hell, John Giorno, Tav Falco and John Cale. The Masters were also featured on the CD 10% File Under Burroughs, released 1998. In 2012 they appeared on the latest Rough Guide to the Music of Morocco. The 40th Anniversary of Pipes of Pan

In 2008 the Masters honoured the 40th Anniversary of Brian Jones’s influential recording with a festival at Joujouka. Anita Pallenberg and John Dunbar were among the people who made the pilgrimage to the village. Joujouka by Daragh McCarthy, a film of the 2008 Brian Jones Festival premiered in London in 2012 and will be released in 2013.

Since then the festival has become an annual event, attracting artists, filmmakers, musicians, writers and fans from around the world. As well as generating valuable global publicity for the music, the festival has become an important economic factor in Joujouka life

2011 saw the Masters on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury, opening the Festival.

Many projects were born during the years around the tradition of The Master Musicians of Joujouka . One of the most interesting, in my opinion, is called JOUJOUKA INTERZONE and re-established tiesbetween the beat culture of the 50'sand 60'swiththe Moroccan traditionofThe Master Musicians of Joujouka.Joujouka Interzone is a collaboration between Master Musicians of Joujouka, French sound and visual artist Joachim Montessuis and Frank Rynne. Montessuis and Rynne will live mix and project a HD digital onslaught utilizing archival and specially commissioned material while The Master Musicians of Joujouka provide an aural onslaught that maintains their completely natural sound with no additions.

giovedì 12 marzo 2015

In 1979, Ali Chouhad left Izmaz (Changeable Weather) and founded Archach (Drizzle) together with young people from his region (Issaffen, in the Tata region of southern Morocco).

This group was part of the movement for the revival of Amazigh (Berber) songs and they wanted to mix traditional village rhythms (the Ahwash dance) and modern urban rhythms popular during the last few years of the sixties (Usman, Izenzaren, Nass El Ghiwan). This fusion was very successful with migrants from this region to the main urban areas of Morocco and abroad.

Since its introduction Archach has published an album every year. The majority of his lyric poems, as much with Archach or alone, are his own composition. A few exceptions are a poem by Moustawi and a selection of songs by Azer’i Anshad and Sidi Hemmou. Also he has set his own poetry to the music of Anshad, Doudder’, Lhajj Mohammad Amourague or even Belaid.

Like many Amazighian bands in the Ahuach region, Morocco; Archach's songs were always carefully chosen from 'darg'/'darja' mawrouth poetry. But, most of their poems were censored by the Moroccan authorities during the rebel-rousing times of the late 70's and early 80's.

The group (also spelled as Archache) has at least 34 albums since their first one was issued in mid-1980. The previous year, five ex-members from various Soussian bands gathered together to form Archach: Ali Chouhad, Mohammed Slout (from Ibrkak), L'Hassan Wachach, Ibrahim Isakran (Essafen), and Aziz El-Harras (Tafrawit) and played live at Assouass Square: the place to be at that time for most neo-traditional Soussian bands.

Later, they were joined by Chouhad's brother Abed El-Kbir and together they wrote most of the songs. All in all, their roots harked back to the Ibrkak, Essafen district in the Lesser-Atlas region, between Tatta and Troudanout. This region is very rich in Ahuach music (Note: a very mountainous region known for its famous poetry, or 'Inzamen': The Composure), and one of its best poets around (El-Hamou Taleb), wrote so many poems for the band.

Musical Extract:Their style is very tribal (to use but a new-ageist word, mind), as it belongs to the tribal Ahuach music style which stresses group dances, and poetical composure, too famous around Souss, El-Houz, and Daraa in the east and known by many names: Ahankhar, Ajmak, Ahmaulou, Eldrassit, Ehuiach, Ahuoari, A'Knawi, Tskiouin, etc. and has numerous substyles, like Ahuach Emmi Ntanout, Essefen, T'louat, Ahuadh Ihahen, Ahuadh Ait B'Oumran, and Takraou/Tamhadhrin (Women-only styles).

The dance is called 'E-Rakz', but most of these styles are based on the music and the poems written in an improvisational manner which is a very unique feature in Soussian music. The instrument vary, too: Kanka (African), Aloun, Tknza, Akwal, Nai, and the Banjo.

Archach took Soussian music away from the Terroussa (also called, Ruweiss) style played by Moulays (or, master players and singers like El-Rayess El-Hajj Bal'Eid, Bou Bakr Al-Azaari, Bou Bakr Anchad, Saffiyah Oulet Telouat, El-Hussein Janthi, Rayess Omar Wahrouch), into a more modern, fusion-heavy one full of maqams and old, traditional tunes set in new musical moulds.

sabato 7 marzo 2015

In the field of Amazigh (Berber) music, the experience of the group Izenzarn presents certain characteristics. The emergence of this group occurred in the general context of the social changes in the post-colonial Morocco. The emigration (rural migration in the Moroccan sociological terminology) became an irreversible phenomenon. The rural society settles in the town and is confronted at the same time with the violent process of integration and assimilation and with the social problems resulting from the arbitrary management of country by the makhzenian Mafia. This situation requires the invention of new forms of poetico-musical expressions (or the adaptation of the old forms) to express at the same time the nostalgia of the origins and the anger towards the abusive policies. Also, at this times, Anglo-Saxon musical groups (such as the Beatles) as well as Moroccan groups (Nass el Ghiwan, Jil Jilala, etc.) impose their rhythms and influence the development of musical groups known as popular. Mixing modern and traditional instruments, these groups interpret songs, inspired by the ancestral tradition or expressing the current sensibilities of a generation coming from the first wave of the rural emigrants.

Founded at the end of the Sixties by a group of young people from newly urbanized families, Izenzarn is among the first Amazigh groups to modernize and radicalize the Amazigh song. After tribulations under different names, a first album is recorded in the year 1974. Thus starts the first season of the group, characterized by love songs such as: Wad ittemuddun (traveler), Wa zzin (Oh! beauty), etc, or nostalgic and traditional songs: Immi Henna (My gracious mother)... In the beginning of the Eighties, Izenzarn embraces more protesting themes: ttuzzalt (dagger), ttâbla (plate), tamurghi (grasshoppers)...

The protest in Izenzarn’s songs is characterized by the challenge of the dominant speeches: Iggut lebrîh idrus may sellan igh islêh… Plenty of speeches And yet Nobody listens to the reason

and the harsh description of the reality: Nettghwi zun d teghwi tmmurghi gh igenwan ikk d lhif akal… We are like grasshoppers taken between the skies and the dry grounds.

This reality is a world of fear, oppression and torture [tawda gh will ugharas (fear in the paths), izîtti wuzzal (iron bars), ur nemmut ur nsul (neither alive nor dead)…]

The success of the group is due to its strange musical style and the poetry of its songs that presented already at the end of the Seventies the germs of a revolution in the modern Berber poetic creation.

After a disagreement, the group had split. Two groups dispute the name: Izenzarn Iggut Abdelhadi and Izenzarn Shamkh. But, it is the first one that imposed itself due to the emblematic image of its main singer, Iggut Abdelhadi.(Source : http://www.azawan.com/)